Dictionary Drabbles
by GMTH
Summary: A series of drabbles written for the Beloved Enemies mailing list Dictionary Drabbles challenge. All HP/LM SLASH. Each one is based on a different theme word, which is defined at the beginning of the drabble.
1. Alone With the Dark

A/N: This was written for the weekly Dictionary Drabbles challenge on the Beloved Enemies mailing list. The theme word for this piece was "oubliette," meaning "a dungeon with an opening only at the top."

Word count: 500   


**Alone With the Dark**

  
  
Harry hardly ever opened his eyes anymore.   
  
Why bother, when the only thing he could see were the thin bars of light outlining the trap door far above his head?   
  
He had no idea where he was, or how he got there. The last thing he remembered was casting the curse that killed Voldemort, and then the world faded into darkness.   
  
Total, absolute darkness.   
  
At first, he passed the time exploring his surroundings, looking for a way out. His wand was gone, but it hardly mattered. The room was blanketed in wards that prevented him from using any magic.   
  
When it became clear there was no escape, he began yelling for help, screaming for hours until his throat was raw and his voice cracked and died away. No one came, and eventually he fell into a silence as impenetrable as the dark.   
  
***   
  
He slept. There was nothing else to do.   
  
One day when he awoke, there was a presence nearby. He heard the whisper of someone breathing, a sound so loud in the stillness of his prison that it jarred him from a sound sleep as effectively as an alarm clock.   
  
"Who's there?" he asked, his voice rusty from disuse.   
  
The Presence did not answer.   
  
"Who are you?" he demanded again, louder.   
  
"I am the new Dark Lord," the Presence said.   
  
A sliver of fear stabbed Harry's heart. "What do you want?"   
  
"I want you to join me."   
  
"Never!" Harry said.   
  
"You *will* join me," the voice assured him. "When you are ready." And then the Presence was gone.   
  
"Never," Harry whispered.   
  
And he meant it. The Dark was worse than the dark.   
  
***   
  
An eternity passed, and the solitude became unbearable. He ached to hear the sound of another voice, to feel the touch of another hand. He began screaming again, throwing himself against the wards in his desperation, hoping he would die in the process and escape from hell that way. This kind of life wasn't worth living.   
  
It was hopeless. Someone was keeping him alive. After a while, it was no longer important who that Someone was.   
  
***   
  
He dreamed someone was sitting beside him on his cot, stroking his hair, speaking words of comfort in a low voice. It felt so *real* that he arched into the touch, nearly crying with relief.   
  
"Join me," the dream voice said.   
  
"No. Never."   
  
"When you are ready, you will."   
  
***   
  
He slept more than ever now, hoping the dream would return. It always did, and it was the sweetest thing he had ever known. One night the voice was muted as the speaker's mouth ghosted its way down his abdomen and swallowed his cock. He awakened as the orgasm ripped through him, clutching handfuls of silky hair in each fist.   
  
Not a dream. Reality.   
  
"Are you ready to join me?" the voice asked once more, just before salty sweet lips pressed against his own.   
  
"Yes," Harry whispered into the kiss.   
  
And he meant it. The dark was worse than the Dark. 


	2. We'll Always Have Stockholm

A/N: This was written for the weekly Dictionary Drabbles challenge on the Beloved Enemies mailing list. The theme word for this piece was "ameliorate," meaning "to make better or more tolerable." 

Word count: 500 

  
Warnings: Violence, abuse 

**We'll Always Have Stockholm**

Harry tensed in his restraints as McNair raised the lash above his head. He barely had time to register the sound of it whistling through the air before it burned across the bare skin between his shoulder blades, tearing an agonized scream from his throat. He'd lost count of how many times it had landed in the same spot. McNair was nothing if not skilled with the whip.

"Stop!" a voice commanded sharply as McNair raised his arm once more. Harry nearly sobbed with relief when Lucius strode into the room. It was over. He'd survived it once again. 

"Leave us," Lucius ordered the circle of Death Eaters. They complied immediately. 

"I'm sorry I wasn't here to stop them," Lucius said quietly, murmuring the spell to release Harry from his bonds. He caught the younger man as he fell forward and Apparated them both upstairs to his chambers. 

"How long has it been since you've eaten?" Lucius asked after he'd healed the wounds on Harry's back. Another set of scars added to the multitude already criss-crossing his flesh. 

"I don't know," Harry croaked. "Since before you left. How long were you gone this time?" 

"Three days," Lucius said, summoning a platter of food. He fed Harry with his fingers, offering him tiny bites so Harry's cramping stomach wouldn't reject the badly needed nourishment. When Harry finished eating, Lucius gathered him in his arms and carried him to the bathroom, where a warm bath had been drawn. He settled Harry in the water and gently scrubbed away the layers of grime and sweat three days of neglect had left on him. 

"Thank you, Lucius," Harry said softly, looking up at his savior with love in his eyes. 

Later, when they lay together in bed, Harry wrapped his legs around Lucius's waist and shouted the older man's name as he came. 

**** 

Rough hands shook him awake, and Harry opened his eyes to see Severus Snape standing over him. 

"Wake up, Potter," Snape hissed. "Hurry. I've got to get you out of here before Lucius finds me." 

"What are you doing here?" 

"I've been looking for you for months. It never occurred to me that he would bring you here. Get up. Quickly! I've come to take you home." 

Harry sat up. "Home?" he said numbly, then shook his head. "No. I don't want to go. I want to stay here." 

Snape reared back as though he had been struck. "With Lucius? My gods, boy! Why?" 

"I… I love him," Harry replied. "Whenever they hurt me, he makes them stop. Whenever they starve me, he makes sure I'm fed and bathed and… he takes care of me." 

"Potter, this is Malfoy Manor. Do you think they would be doing all these things to you without Lucius's knowledge? He's the one who has been ordering them to beat you and starve you all along!" 

Harry looked up at Snape then, his eyes so dead that Snape recoiled at the sight. 

"I know," Harry whispered. 

**** 

More A/N: I have also written a few NC-17 rated drabbles for this challenge, which of course I can't post here. If you're interested in checking them out, you can find them on my webpage. The URL is in my author profile. 


	3. Bad Karma

A/N: This was written for the weekly Dictionary Drabbles challenge on the Beloved Enemies mailing list. The theme word for this piece was "Karma," meaning "the force generated by a person's actions; held in Hinduism and Buddhism to perpetuate transmigration and in its ethical consequences to determine the nature of the person's next existence."

Word count: 579   


**BAD KARMA**  
  


  
"Master Draco is waiting for you in the library, Master Harry sir." 

  
Harry glanced up at the house elf bobbing nervously in his bedroom doorway. "I'll be down momentarily, Lucky," he said, turning back to the mirror to finish buttoning his shirt. The elf bowed and scurried off. 

  
Harry took his time choosing a vest and tie. After so many years of being forbidden to wear any clothing at all, he now took great pleasure in the mechanics of getting dressed. Besides, it wouldn't hurt Draco to wait for a change. 

  
When he was satisfactorily attired, he began the long walk from the bedroom level of Malfoy Manor down to the library. He unconsciously soothed himself by running one hand repeatedly down the middle of his chest as he walked, a nervous habit he had acquired after watching Lucius do it for so many years. He hated these monthly meetings with Draco. 

  
The Manor belonged to Harry now, a gift from the Ministry of Magic after Lucius had been killed by Aurors five years earlier. A search of the house after its owner's death had revealed a startling secret - a battered, emaciated Harry lying chained to a bed in a locked room. "We thought you were dead," a dazed Arthur Weasley explained when Harry asked why no one had come looking for him sooner. "Killed in the war." Arthur was Minister of Magic by then, and he decided to give Harry the Manor - as well as the rest of Lucius's assets - as recompense for the years he had lost to Lucius's abuse. "It's not enough," Arthur acknowledged sadly, "but it's the best we can do." 

  
Draco had fought like a madman to get his family's property back, of course, but in the end he had lost. Now he was forced to live on the small monthly allowance Harry had agreed to provide him in a moment of kindness he now regretted. But having suffered such misery for so long, Harry found he couldn't bear the idea of anyone else suffering. 

  
Not even Draco. 

  
Lucky was dangling in mid-air when Harry stepped into the library, his face twisted with fear. "Let him down, Draco," Harry sighed, and a moment later the elf fell, squealing loudly, to the hard marble floor. 

  
"Damn elf was touching Father's cane," Draco growled as the elf painfully regained his feet. The ebony and silver cane was the only one of Lucius's belongings Harry had allowed Draco to keep. "Where did you find this miserable creature anyway, Potter? He wasn't here when I lived here." 

  
"No," Harry said, signing the Gringott's voucher that would allow Draco to make his monthly withdrawal. "I don't know where he came from. He showed up here shortly after your father died." 

  
"I would advise you to teach him his place, Potter," Draco snapped, snatching the voucher from Harry's hand. "Pathetic little wretch." 

  
"Show Master Draco to the door, Lucky," Harry said, cutting Draco off before he could wind himself up into a full-blown rant. 

  
"Don't bother," Draco replied nastily. "I grew up here. I know the way." He gave Lucky a vicious kick on his way past, then swept out of the library with a swish of his shabby robes. 

  
Harry sighed again. "All right, Lucky, get back to work cleaning out the fireplaces, please," he said. 

  
"Yes, Master Harry, sir," Lucky squeaked, unconsciously running one hand down the middle of his chest as he scampered away. 


	4. Exception to the Rule

A/N: My entry in the Dictionary Drabbles challenge on the Beloved Enemies mailing list. The theme word is "exempt."   


Warnings: Torture, BDSM

Word count: 500  


EXCEPTION TO THE RULE

"No, my Lord," Lucius said, and Harry felt the first stirrings of hope he'd had in a very long time. 

The stone floor was hard beneath his bare knees and he shifted uncomfortably, hardly enough to be noticed, though of course Lucius noticed it. The hand holding the end of his leash twitched just enough to provide a subtle warning, and the other hand dropped onto his head to stroke his hair absentmindedly. 

"No?" Voldemort's voice was a dangerous whisper. Harry dared not look up, but from the corner of his eye he could see the Dark Lord had ceased pacing and was now facing Lucius straight on. "Do you mean no as in you disagree?" Voldemort hissed. The black boots drifted closer. 

The hand in his hair continued its gentle caresses, an obscene parody of the manner in which Lucius usually touched him, and Harry closed his eyes. "I mean no as in I refuse, my Lord," Lucius said smoothly. "I consider it an unnecessarily foolish risk, now that we have finally captured Hogwarts." 

This was it, then. The world would end soon in a flash of green light. Just the week before, Harry had been kneeling in this very spot when Voldemort had killed both Macnair and his slave for a far less major transgression. What remained of their bodies still hung on spikes just outside the Forbidden Forest, a constant reminder to the castle's inhabitants that Voldemort's word was law.

Harry's heart leapt. He would finally be free. He slitted his eyes open to look at the angry, red manacle burns encircling his wrists. No more. No more cringing at the sound of the lash whistling above his head. No more frantic gasping for breath as Lucius wrenched his head out of the tub of water, then plunged it back in again as his cock tore Harry open. No more hot pokers or painfully large gags that stretched his jaws until they felt they would break. He would see his parents again, perhaps walk with Dumbledore and kiss his beloved Severus. How long he had prayed for death, and now Lucius, who had never willingly done anything to make his life easier, had provided the means for his escape from hell.

Without raising his head, he lifted the hem of Lucius's robe to his lips and kissed it reverently, praying that Voldemort would act quickly. 

But the silence only stretched on as the Dark Lord drew nearer. Harry risked a look upwards, and the spark of joy that had sustained him sputtered and died when he saw the grim, twisted smile on Voldemort's face. 

"Only you, Lucius," Voldemort said, raising one scaly finger to stroke the pale cheek. "Only you could disobey me thus and live to tell the tale." 

"My Lord," Lucius acknowledged humbly. 

"Go."

A sharp tug on his leash, and Harry rose sullenly. The stones were cold beneath his feet, but he barely felt them for the stunning ache of being condemned to life. 


End file.
